Book Promo
If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. A COMMISSION IS EARNED FROM EACH PURCHASE.*Note that I haven’t read most of these books (my reading is eclectic and “craving led”,) and apply the usual cautions to buying. I reserve the right not to run any submission, if cover, blurb or anything else made me decide not to, at my sole discretion.– SAH
FROM DALE COZORT: Devouring Wind
“They’re coming for us, from the sky and emptiness.” Ten months ago, technology guru Sharon Mack and her autistic and strangely prescient daughter Bethany were trapped in the wild alternate version of Earth called Bear Country. They took refuge at Fort Eegan, an outpost built by a peculiar cult with mysterious ties to the US government. Now a new Exchange brings terrifying new consequences.
The new Exchange blocks Fort Eegan’s water supply, threatening deprivation now and catastrophic floods in the future. It also pits Fort Eegan against beings with superior technology, inhuman ruthlessness and a weapon capable of devouring everything in its path, including Fort Eegan.
In spite of the danger from the new Exchange, the humans of Bear Country are nearing a war with one another. Ruthless escaped convicts hold hundreds of women hostage. With supplies dwindling, they eye Fort Eegan’s already limited resources. Inside and outside the fort, conflicts fester among the isolated humans, including a deadly love triangle. Fort Eegan’s only hope is to unite before it is blown away by the devouring winds.
FROM SCOTT MCCREA: U.S. Marshal Ezra Flint: Hard As Flint: A Western Adventure (A U.S. Marshal Ezra Flint Western Book 1)
Introducing an action-packed new Western series by master storyteller Scott McCrea and introducing his new character, Marshal Ezra Flint—a rough, tough lawman who fights for what is right and never gives ground to a wrong-doer.
Marshal Ezra Flint keeps the mean streets of Misery safe, but things get personal when his ex-lover runs off with one of the most dangerous bandits in the territories. Flint goes on a quest to bring her back, but each step of the trail is dogged by paid killers. He traces her to a flyspeck town in Kansas, but can he bring her back before the killers find him?
Hard as Flint is the first in an exciting new series of westerns featuring Marshal Ezra Flint by Western Writers of America Spur Award finalist Scott McCrea.
“Hard as Flint is a noir western with an especially hardboiled marshal. It’s a story of the violence of the West and of the passions that make men do dirty deeds. I hope you’ll like it,” said author Scott McCrea.
BY MAX BRAND, REVIVED BY D. JASON FLEMING: The Gun Tamer (annotated): The Classic Pulp Western
When Don Felipe Christobal Hernandez Consalvo appeared at the local dance, every young lady noticed him. Most especially did Mary Mackay notice him. Lydia, her mother, could tell immediately that, no matter how charming and elegant, there was something off about the man. Her husband, the colonel, saw only Consalvo’s regal heritage, and invited him into their home. Now Lydia must play a complicated game, doing nothing to push her daughter away, enlisting outside help from the sheriff, and trying to solve the riddle of Don Consalvo, who claims to be the merest fop, yet is a crack shot capable of defeating the fastest draw in the land.
- This iktaPOP Media edition includes a new introduction giving the novel genre and historical context.
FROM DAVID K. THOMASSON: The First Impression
A man framed . . . his life ruined . . . and then the twists begin.
Jack Bolt rose from a hillbilly childhood of poverty, neglect, and abuse. Thanks to his unusually keen mind and the faith of a teacher and a bookstore owner, his future looks bright. At age 25 he’s working maintenance in a college town, studying on a scholarship, and about to marry the girl of his dreams.
During a routine service call at a church he runs into 13-year-old Sarah Ellison. Moments after he leaves, Sarah is brutally murdered. Bolt is charged with the crime and convicted by a brilliant prosecutor who uses his own honesty against him.
He’s been framed with tainted evidence, but this is no whodunit. Bolt knows exactly who did it—Conrad Baylor, church deacon and deputy chief of police.
Held in jail during his trial, Bolt is haunted by the ‘howdunit’: How did Baylor manage to tamper with the evidence and frame him? And how can he discover the secret and clear his name if he goes to prison?
But then, in a strange turn of events, Bolt is offered a chance to prove his innocence and recover his once-promising future. That’s when a deadly game of cat-and-mouse begins . . .
FROM LAURA MONTGOMERY: Long in the Land: A Science Fiction Lost Colony Adventure (Martha’s Sons Book 2)
He’s a man on the run. But on this harsh alien world, freedom doesn’t mean he’s safe.
Peter Dawe can’t face his mother’s relentless grief. With her anguish deepening his guilt and the colony’s governor out for revenge, he’s desperate to escape a deadly situation ready to explode. So he jumps at the chance to journey north away from danger, chasing the rare sight of a long-lost aircraft.
Buoyed by the glimpse of a machine he’s never seen before, Peter discovers the pilot desperately needs aid for his newborn son. But with sinister agents searching for them both, the remote planet may not be big enough to preserve the young fugitive from his enemy’s vengeance.
Can Peter find them refuge before they all fall to their doom?
Long in the Land is the thrilling second book in the Martha’s Sons science fiction series. If you like captivating world-building, edge-of-your-seat tension, and memorable characters, then you’ll love Laura Montgomery’s high-stakes tale.Buy Long in the Land to make a stark choice today!
FROM HOLLY CHISM: Bite Sized (Liquid Diet Chronicles Book 1)
Meg Turner has been a vampire for twenty years. Her favorite food is rapists. Which is how she met Andi Donahue, her new best friend/ girl Friday.
And then the nightmares start. And the bodies start showing up–bled out and raped. Just like Meg was. They don’t have a whole lot of time to stop the killer before he strikes again, and only one way to stop the killer.
But how can Andi help Meg stop a killer she can’t even see?
FROM KAREN MYERS: To Carry the Horn – A Virginian in Elfland (The Hounds of Annwn Book 1)
AN ENTIRE KINGDOM BUILT AROUND A SUPERNATURAL NEED FOR JUSTICE, ENFORCED BY THE WILD HUNT AND THE HOUNDS OF HELL.
What would you do if you blundered into a strange world, where all around you was the familiar landscape of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, but the inhabitants were the long-lived fae, and you the only human?
George Talbot Traherne stumbles across the murdered huntsman of the Wild Hunt, and is drafted into finding out who did it. Oh, and assigned the task of taking the huntsman’s place with the Hounds of Hell, whether he wants the job or not.
The antlered god Cernunnos is the sponsor of this kingdom, and he requires its king to conduct the annual hunt for justice in pursuit of an evil criminal, or else lose his right to the kingship, and possibly end up hunted himself.
Success is far from guaranteed, and no human has held the post. George discovers his own blood links to the fae king, and he’s determined to try. But Cernunnos himself has a personal role to play, and George will have to sort out just why he’s the one who’s been chosen for the task.
And whether he has any chance of surviving the job.
Find out what it’s like to live in a world where you can help the Right to prevail, even if it might cost you everything.
FROM WILLIAM STROOCK: The Great Nuclear War of 1975
In a Different 1975…
Superpower relations breakdown and a nuclear war all but annihilates the Soviet Union and devastates the United States.
100 million Americans are dead.
After Washington is destroyed, a smalltown judge delivers the oath of office to Vice President Rockefeller.
Surviving American forces on land, sea and in the air await orders from the new president.
Americans across the nation climb out of the rubble looking for a homeland that no longer exists.
In surviving capitals across the globe, governments ponder the implications of a world without the superpowers.
In Britain, a rump cabinet meets in the Cotswolds to plan a way forward without the United States.
Commonwealth Prime Ministers in Canberra, Auckland and Ottawa look to the UK for leadership.
In Buenos Ares, a weak government plots the takeover of the Malvines.
As radiation sweeps down from Siberia, the Chinese government faces unprecedented famine.
In New Delhi, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wonders how she will feed India.
In Rhode Island, one man will start a trek halfway across North America to reunite with his family.
William Stroock is the author of 15 novels including the World War 1990 alternate history series.
FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: The Shadow over Leningrad
In Stalin’s Soviet Union, Tikhon Grigoriev lives a precarious life. He knows too much. He’s seen too much. A single misstep could destroy him, and if he stumbles, he will take his family down with him. With Leningrad besieged by Nazi armies, the danger has only increased.
He’s not a man who wants to come to the notice of those in high places. But when he solved a murder that seemed supernatural, impossible, he attracted the attention of Leningrad’s First Party Secretary.
So when a plot of land grows vegetables of unusual size and vigor, and anyone who eats them goes mad, who should be called upon to solve the mystery but Tikhon Grigoriev. However, these secrets could get him far worse than a bullet in the head. For during the White Nights the boundaries between worlds grow thin, and in some of those worlds humanity can have no place.
Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.
So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
Your writing prompt this week is: SATISFY
According To Hoyt 
“Well, you got me, are you satisfied?”
“Well my lady, in one sense I’ll never be satisfied until I get every woman on Earth. But I doubt that you’d approve of that so I’ll stop with you. You’re too dangerous for me to get you angry at me.”
He had even learned some of these spells at the time. Enough to satisfy his curiosity, no more. Now, he had to scale it up, and master it strongly enough to counter an evil wizard.
Who would not be there, Felix reminded himself. Who perhaps had not thought of salt.
Woo hoo! More reading material! Thank you!
The study was all but silent. The quiet ticking of a clock almost echoed in the silence. Kailen’s breathing was slow, surprisingly steady as he sat in an armchair and stared into nothing. Lord Fyreheart’s pen paused in its steady march across the page. Then it moved again, slowly and calmly laid to rest upon the ancient desk. Fyreheart stood and took up his cane with a similar care, pushing the desk chair into place before stepping over to sit across from Kailen.
The fire crackled quietly beside them. An empty chessboard lay ignored to one side.
Lord Fyreheart took a deep breath, then let it out. “Could you repeat that?”
“Sigfrey’s Eyes. The High Priest wants me to retrieve Sigfrey’s Eyes.”
“From the Underworld.” Fyreheart’s tone was still calm, even.
“Yes.” Kailen’s gaze was empty, unmoving, locked on the many bookshelves lining the walls behind Lord Fyreheart.
The nobleman’s hand reached across the distance, brushed the side of Kailen’s chin. Pushed at it lightly until he blinked and lowered his gaze to Fyreheart’s eyes.
“Did Evren give you this quest, or did Duke Arngett bring you the assignment from him?”
The next breath was uneven, shaking slightly – like the mountainside before a rockfall. “From the High Priest himself. He said that restoring our Lord’s sight would be proof that I was worthy of the throne, that I was chosen. I never wanted to be -” His tone rose faintly with each word, caught between a cry and a plea at the end. “I never have been worthy! I never asked -”
“Hush, my friend. I know.” The lord’s hand slid down to one shoulder, gripping strongly enough to brace without being painful. “Is this the only quest that will satisfy the Reckoning?”
“‘The royal line is ended, the enemy beaten back for now but still lingering at the gates, the dukes and lords fight amongst themselves for power. It needs to be unquestionable, undeniable.'” Kailen’s voice was quieter now, almost empty. The words did not sound like his own, rather what he had been told repeated almost verbatim. His hand reached up to grip Fyreheart’s wrist as if it was the one thing binding him to the earth, the only thing keeping him from falling into oblivion. “It has been too long since Sigfrey’s sight was stolen from him.”
Silence held again for a time. Kailen, unable to bear Fyreheart’s gaze for long, turned to stare at the white-hot embers still burning in the hearth.
“Kailen. What do you want?”
He blinked, then looked up once more to meet the nobleman’s eyes. “What?”
“What do you want?” Fyreheart’s expression was not quite closed off, but all one could read from it was a quiet, grim resolve. “Others could claim the throne in your stead, you have said yourself that there are many who would do so. I know you have never sought power for your own gain, never wanted to rule. You can refuse this quest. Let another hand seize the crown.”
A hollow smile crept its way onto Kailen’s face, and the sound he made was a broken, despairing parody of a laugh. “They would still follow me. The Duke, the King – they made me their hero, and the people will follow me until they see me for what I am. And they will not. I have tried to show them, tried to tell them – but they still call me ‘Lion.’ ‘Saint.’ ‘Lightbringer.'” The last title was spoken with a particular hatred, almost spat out.
“Leave. Disappear. There are those in this city who could arrange for you to appear dead.”
“And those left behind would slaughter each other, slaughter our people, for a broken crown and a kingdom under siege. I cannot -” Kailen shook his head. “They’re fools for following me, but I cannot abandon them.” He started, suddenly, and looked to Fyreheart’s face with an expression like the birth of a star, the dawning of hope. “Unless-”
“The Fyreheart line can never hold the crown. So was sworn at the founding of this nation, such was demanded for the name of Fyreheart to remain.” The nobleman’s eyes showed pity, but no weakness. “I am sorry, my dear friend, but I cannot take the throne, even if I wished to.”
The light of hope was barely a candle flame, easily snuffed out. “Of course.”
“I can hold the wolves off in your stead,” Fyreheart offered quietly, tightening his grip on Kailen’s shoulder. “Until you return. And my family holds much knowledge that would not be found elsewhere, I can give you counsel on the Underworld.”
“I know not to trust what I see. I know that the Underworld lies.”
A faint smile played over Fyreheart’s face. “Such is current doctrine. There are older accounts of the Underworld, from a few daring souls who encountered that domain and its Lord. I will search my library, find what I can give you, but there are three things I can tell you now.”
Kailen looked up, broken shards finally beginning to bind themselves together again.
“The Underworld may lie, but it will also tell the truth. Often, what you wish most to be true will be the lie and what you know cannot be anything but a lie will be the truth. In addition to that, you must remember – any vows, oaths, promises, or bargains made in the Underworld will be kept. Even if they must break the mind and body of the one who made them.”
“And the third?”
The smile faded, replaced by the same grim resolve from earlier. “The Lord of the Underworld stole Sigfrey’s Eyes millennia ago, and holds them still. He cannot be blinded, hidden from, tricked, nor deceived. When you enter his realm, Kailen, he will know. Remember that.”
Kailen took a deep breath, the still-mending shards of his soul tucked away behind a mask of confidence and courage. “I will.”
I knew this one would tie back to a certain character, I just didn’t know how.
“Dammit!” Vincent swore despite the fact that he easily blasted his opponent backwards with a flash of silver light. It didn’t help that his opponent landed on her feet gracefully, the white edge of her black blade gleaming.
“Not bad, Fu Shisha,” she remarked. “But I must send you to Yomi here and now. The continent will not know peace as long as you stand ready to defend your Shinigami.”
“You think Carys is a greater threat to peace than the Mad Empress?! Really?!” the Undying growled as Ash spread her wings, both they and the gunblade she wielded glowing with arcana. “There isn’t a damned thing in this world that will satisfy that rabid monster!”
He drove his words home with a sonic wave, which forced Azahara and Shaula to react with another one of their graceful dodges. “I never said that the Bruja Loca was any less of one, Fu Shisha,” the assassin retorted. “If you must blame anyone for us meeting like this, blame the foolish kings Friedrich and Kylian for making an enemy of His Majesty.”
Azahara emphasized her words with a magic attack of her own. Shaula held her left hand vertically in front of her face as a swirling vortex of water appeared beneath Vincent and Ash. He quickly rerouted her arcana power into her defenses, hoping to at least ward off the slowing effect the spell could have on his movement. The vortex almost threw him off balance but nothing seemed amiss when he urged Ash forward.
“Thank God for small favors.” Vincent thought before conjuring up several blades of darkness accented with red. He figured Shaula had the same protection against the element her mistress did but he wasn’t expecting to take down the Topaz Shadow with it. He just needed to force her and Azahara into just the right spot as he charged forward.
“Foolish, Fu Shi – !” Azahara’s taunt was cut short by another flash of silver light that sent her staggering backwards as Vincent brushed past her.
“You want to settle King Alonso’s scores?! He’ll take you up on that!” Vincent retorted. “Now if you’ll excuse me!”
“Nani…?” the assassin muttered before she heard a round of mocking, mechanical laughter. The Jade Tempest charged out of sight, her ebony wings trailing her as the Lapis Maelstrom stepped up.
“You’re losin’ your touch, Sweet Shaula!” the blue titan chortled, its yellow eyes flashing with amusement. “You and your cute little missy should know not to get in the way of a man in love!”
“Silence, boorish corsair,” the Topaz Shadow hissed before speaking to her Chosen. “Vincent Austin’s escape is regrettable but our primary target has presented itself, Azahara. Let us proceed.”
“Hai,” Azahara replied, a cruel smirk twisting her beautiful features. “Your head will make an even greater gift for His Majesty, Satsujin-sha!”
“Then let us see if your skills have improved since last time.” Alphonse Faucher responded evenly, a parrying dagger gleaming in Sadalmelik’s clawed left hand. The two lithe Immortals then clashed, Sadalmelik using the dagger to deflect Shaula’s strikes with her katana, all while striking back with his claws as the opportunities presented themselves.
“So this is a lovely Catch-22,” Bai Lin sighed, glaring at the map. “To satisfy the oligarchs, to keep them from going after us with lawfare and economic warfare, we have to convince them that we are going to give them all sorts of money. Meanwhile, we have to steal them blind at the same time, because we need to destroy their economic stranglehold on the world.”
“And do it in less than four years,” Malcom agreed.
One day Fox, about on his business, saw Turtle sunning himself on a stone. “How is it, friend Turtle, that you just lay there?” asked the Fox.
“Ah” the Turtle replied. “I am satisfied by the simple combination of sun and rock. You, my friend, think you need much more”.
“Her work is satisfactory.” The voice from behind the bird mask had a snarky tone, that of someone confident that individual identification would be impossible, that no consequences could be brought to bear for openly contradicting someone in authority, especially someone of a people notoriously touchy about their prerogatives.
It was all I could do to keep from laughing in delight at the consternation of the target of his attention. The Qal Hai considered themselves a race of masters, and self-mastery was its first principle. One did not show any emotions save those one wished to project — yet being mocked in this fashion while he was attempting to discipline a member of the servile class had gotten the better of him.
However, I was supposed to be a senior official of the Markani Union. It would not do for me to appear to show approval of such mischief, not while receiving one of their diplomats with yet another video of one of their own being mocked and bested by someone who wasn’t even there. At least maintaining the proper polite reserve is easier when one doesn’t have to worry about your thoughts betraying you.
I mouthed the usual lines about the difficulties of identifying the culprit, knowing that the Qal considered it yet another excuse for inaction. In their minds, the proper course in such circumstances was to punish anyone who might be involved in the matter. They really didn’t understand that mass reprisals weren’t an option under our laws.
He turned to Annike. “How far can you leap? And what do you need to leap to a place?”
She lifted her head. “I have not found a limit to it, but only to a place I have seen. If I had not glimpsed this woods as she hurried us to her home, I could never have reached it.”
Jasper shifted. “I can leap. With others. But only what I can see.”
Annike nodded. “Seeing it when I leap is enough to know it.”
Both of them looked at him, anxious to satisfy.
“Then, Jasper, stand ready. We may need you if what we need overtaxes Annike.” He turned to Annike. “Let me know if you recognize anything along the way and can leap farther than as far as you can see in the direction I point in.”
She nodded and looked at his hands. He reckoned, quickly, and pointed.
(In two parts, because… it just kept growing.)
“So you see now, I trust, why I had to… ask for this meeting with you, directly, Mr. President? The hour is late and the dark shadows grow long, the salvation of your planet is urgently needed!” An eloquent bit of a speechlet, delivered well and earnestly under challenging conditions. It was almost a shame it failed so completely.
Almost.
Of course, seeing it performed on the lush carpet of the President’s cozy little working office by someone looking very much like a fussy five-foot chipmunk did — to any well-grounded Earthling — tend to detract from its “gravitas” a mite. No matter how deftly his vocoder translated.
“Yes, Ambassador, I quite see your point there.”
“So you’ll finally overcome your individualistic hesitancy, and introduce the enabling proposals to your lawmakers? Given how far you’re behind the rest of your world in implementing our OneWorld 2060 protocols, it may be nearly too late to avoid schedule slippage.” The Chipmunk’s high, almost musical chittering nearly trampled the last syllables of David Caldwell’s sentence; but in obvious haste and enthusiasm rather than any overt lack of respect… which made it almost a shame, to reply:
“No, Ambasssador, seeing your point and agreeing with it are two different things, and agreeing even provisionally to implement it here in the United States is a third. Never mind how places like Russia and Inland China and random pieces of Europe have jumped — usually both very quietly and very eagerly — to do much of what your prescription says; most of them already wanted to do something similar. Or were busy doing it.
“We… don’t want to. The damage to our society and economy, which is to say to our people themselves, is bound to be deep and lasting. And I was just ‘hired’ by the Americans to help undo such, not inflict more.
“Ambassador Churr’inek, surely you have studied the, ah, body of evidence that all my speeches make?” (Caldwell’s south-Virginia accent, never fully in hiding, came out a bit more.) “Surely you do understand, it is no mere position, to be adopted or dropped at any little shift of the ever-vagrant political winds?”
If a furry, chipmunk-like alien could ever look both serious and alarmed, this Ambassador of the Galactic Community was managing it. “But this is a true emergency, Mr. President! You’ve seen the evidence, of global warming and human overpopulation and resource exhaustion and disease acceleration and all the rest we’ve documented so carefully and specifically. Surely you can see how the OneWorld 2060 protocols have been carefully crafted to address those circumstances, point by point by point!”
This time he did really stop, and wait.
“Oh, I’d definitely agree, your policy proposals and your catalog of ills match up just about one-to-one.” (There was the merest hint of a ghost of a smile on David Caldwell’s dark face, as the thought again crossed his mind, though which way that close matching was done is another question entirely.) “But surely you also see that our Constitution, here in the United States, forbids many of those things and hampers all the rest. And never even mind little ol’ things like simple human decency.”
“But Mr. President, this is a genuine planetary emergency, a convergence of multiple different-but-related manifestations of a… bottleneck, in the development and existence of your species! A Fermi-paradox filter, as your own leading-thinkers have seen and acknowledged; a true, genuine threat to your species’ long-term survival.
“Even your Constitution provides how it may be changed, even radically…”
“Ambassador. I thought we’d agreed to avoid threats in our discussions.” The President’s voice was low and level and nearly devoid of emotion. The contrast with the runaway-train quality of the alien’s vocoded ‘voice’ was stark. And he might, right then, as well have been carved from stone.
Then the moment passed, and he smiled and bent smoothly to the lever of the retro-chic intercom box on his desk. “Rose, if you’d come join us here for a little while now..?”
“Mr. President, I did not mean to say or imply anything more than that you and your country, you and your world, you and your species must now satisfy all requirements to join the Galactic Community of Worlds. Before we can allow you to receive full benefits and privileges of membership in our…” The change in expression on his furry features was almost, almost comical to see. “You! I’d specifically scheduled this conversation with your superior to avoid any more of your obstructions of these weighty matters of urgent galactic progress..!”
“But progress towards what and for whose benefit, Ambassador Churr’inek? That is the question it’s always been so hard to get an answer to, from you and your mission to Earth.” There was a grin on her face, our unofficial (but quite real) U.S. Ambassador to the Galactic Community and All the Swarming Stars; though as Caldwell had said offering Elissa Rose Fletcher her most unusual secret job, “Just imagine the confirmation hearings on that one.”
“Miss Fletcher, you’re not needed here. You may leave, please go.” It was intriguing to hear how much a Chipmunk could sound like a no-good boss.
“She is if I say so, Churr’inek.” Quietly, definitely.
“And she can speak for herself, gentlemen. Which seems to be the root of the trouble, that I can and do think and speak for myself, subject to veto by my boss here. Not say only, ‘yes sir yes sir three bags full sir’ or whatever, to you and your ‘Galactic Community’.” Her green eyes well and truly danced. (But did not roll, not visibly, even the tiniest bit.)
“Be all that as it may, Mr. President, it is still true, you must meet and satisfy all the requirements for membership. Already, you have reaped the benefits of our technology; the fusion-to-electricity converters that are even now saving your planet from your wasteful and destructive burning of…”
“On loan, Ambassador. Only on loan. Easy power from black-box units is nice, just heavy water in and helium and oxygen out; but still it’s got a fair number of drawbacks. Chief among them, black-box units.” Caldwell’s voice sounded a lot like Elissa Fletcher’s face still looked. “Backed up by good ‘ol coal-fired spinning reserve, just in case.”
“And, Ambassador, as I’ve said before, have you ever even tried to see the OneWorld 2060 proposals you’ve made as an American sees them? Hard limits on fossil-fuel energy, on mining and ranching and farming, even the very sort of extreme population-reduction measures that’ve led to the fall of Inland China’s Communist government? It’s… unacceptable. While there’s any decent alternative at all.” Fletcher’s face was serious. Not truly hard, but absolutely not soft. “And your military-service draft? To turn our people into your mercenaries, fighting for you out among the stars??”
“Mr. President, you must know by now there is no alternative. Untold years of experience by our Galactic Community have proven it, and…”
“There is, Ambassador.” With a press of that gray plastic lever, “Mia, ask Herbert to step inside with us now, please.”
What entered the office was surely the stuff of nightmares. Someone very much like a wolf-spider, enlarged to nearly shoulder-height on the mammal from the stars; with assorted beady black eyes and shaggy ebon fur.
It couldn’t have been any Earthly spider, of course, for any number of biological and biomechanical reasons — but the traits were there, right down to the (to many) disturbing rhythm of its walking. And eight obviously spider-like legs.
‘Rose’ Fletcher smiled. “May I introduce to you Herbert George Wells, his choice for a name to us, Trade Representative to Earth from the Eudaemonic Interstellar Trade and Commerce Association?”
(Part 2 of 2)
“Hello, Churr’inek. Hopefully it is only a misunderstanding, how you seem to have implied your Galactic Community is truly galaxy-wide! Not simply a small-scale, quasi-communist… I believe the closest local terms would be homeowners association and neighborhood protection racket? Now ripe to default on roughly two percent of its operating loans, and thus urgently needing new mar—, um, new probationary members, on board soonest.”
(His voice was almost harmony, coming from dozens of breathing holes that were fitted with what worked like vocal cords. An insect or spider’s usual breathing arrangement of air-filled tubes couldn’t ‘scale up’ that far; so his species had a dual circulatory system of hemolymph and oxylymph, and efficient flow-through ‘lungs’ set between inspiracles and exspiracles.)
The Chipmunk had said nothing, beyond a sort of squeak and trillings that had communicated surprise even without translation.
There was a thump as Caldwell plunked a soda-can-sized device on his desk, looking much like an old-school dry cell. “Nuclear-distortion battery. We just started making these out at Area 51A in Nevada. Roughly a carat each, two hundred milligrams of energy, that’s sixty kilowatt-years of storage. Crude, but workable; up to 50 amps at 1200 volts DC in and out, 60 KW. Two or three of these dropped in your Tesla would run it a whole year at full throttle, no scarce and dirty lithium mining-refining needed or wanted.
“We don’t understand how it works, of course, at anything better than a Sunday-supplement or first-grade-primer level. But we do understand how to make it, with rules-of-thumb design principles on what to do and not do to make it work instead of not-work. And though it stores about four kilotons of energy, it’s nice it can’t give up that energy in less than days, or be charged in less than hours… so, inherently almost-safe by basic physics, and little or no ‘dual use’ direct-to-weapons risk or ‘go boom’ hazards.
“Of course, you do need primary input energy to charge them. Have you ever heard, Ambassador Churr’inek, of a heat-sink engine? It’s about as fully ‘renewable’ as you can ever get, and as ‘green’ as anything could be. If you prize such things.” The President smiled. “Though I can’t show you one of them right now, they’re bigger than a refrigerator and need to weigh at least five or six tons to work at all.”
The chitter went on for several seconds, as it’d been doing before, until his machine translated again. “Mr. President, with all due respect, you do not know what you are doing. This ‘trade association’ is not at all a real government; it has no binding treaty-making power, it will not aid you in your later time of need. It exists only to make… profit! To serve greed! Your people need more, they badly need a firm steadying, helping hand.”
“Profit? To create value, then? Produce things of mutual use and benefit? Not to simply make demands, and warp whole worlds and societies to others’ benefit?” Elissa’s voice was quiet and earnest, too.
The Chipmunk did not say anything out loud, even solely in his own tongue; but it was still almost-clear from his look that what he wanted to say was (some form of) Be silent, you useless annoying female!
That he did not… might even be progress.
“What a heat-sink engine does, Ambassador Churr’inek, is pull ambient heat in and drop it down a temperature difference into a heat sink. Which is to say, so it gets radiated out to the universe at large. Limited only by the microwave background radiation, and the warmth of nearby planets and moons and so forth. Suns are so hot, by comparison, there’s practically no heat radiation out there at ten or a hundred microns, even here around Earth.
“And it turns out ordinary nitrogen gas is the very best at ‘coupling’ to one of these things — a cubic kilometer of ordinary air, moving by at even one mile an hour, is plenty to make a gigawatt of power. One or two degrees cooler, and it’s merrily on its way. The next-best thing, only fifty times worse, is carbon dioxide gas. Harder, but not by much.”
David Caldwell smiled a rich smile at the red-haired human, the seething Chipmunk, and the stolid Spider. “So it literally runs on ‘waste’ heat, by cooling the ambient air just a trifle. Turns ninety, ninety-nine percent or so of it into usable energy, dumps the dregs into the cold of space. No vacuum-energy tapping, no matter-annihilation SF. Carbon-neutral, no fuel to run out, no matter emissions. Ultimately, it runs on heat from the Sun, using the whole planet as a collector. Green as green can be. Makes for a cooling of global climate, to the tiny extent it does anything.
“And if we use its energy as electricity? Ends up as waste heat, which is now just more grist for the mill. Recycled back into useful power, or at least most of it will be.” He shook his head. “Neatest little thing.”
And now there was an extended bout of chittering, almost-screeching from Churr’inek, clearly aimed at ‘H.G. Wells’ and not translated. It sounded like nothing so much as one enraged red squirrel, ranting at another.
But soon enough Herbert turned to David and Elissa and said, “I have been accused of improper technology transfer from my species to yours. And, as you say Mister President, never mind how we traders have considerable experience not making those sorts of mistakes. The main burden of his claim is that by giving you insights, not just non-tamperable black boxes, we’ve somehow done wrong. This is… surely incorrect. Also badly in breach of our Association’s buyer’s-rights and repairability standards.
But, I suppose, to each his own.”
“And another wonderful thing about this technology, though we can’t even yet make all its major components ourselves, is that it’s a perfect source of energy for our upcoming Mars colonies. A one-gigawatt box, the size of a walk-in refrigerator and ten to twenty tons in mass, that needs no fuel and produces no waste — that’s perfect. Ever looked up the mass of even a ‘lightweight’ nuclear reactor plus its turbogenerator? Way more. It takes more mass to stock food for a hundred people on a six-month orbit to Mars than it does to ship one of these things. Magnificent!” Elissa’s face was, in a rather different way than the usual for the word, radiant.
“Bah!” said her fellow Ambassador. “Humanity should learn humility, to be content with limited resources, to live lightly upon the Earth.” (And only upon the Earth, he’d almost-said.)
“Learn to live in sewer pipes stacked into Fifteen Minute Cities, and eat bugs, perhaps? Busy owning nothing and being happy?” Her voice was simply quizzical, not satirical. But still, there was that… smile.
“Some people might even speculate,” she continued in a voice that wouldn’t melt butter in her mouth, “that it was Alvin Toffler and the Chipmunks all along from the very start.” Looked to Caldwell.
“Ambassador Churr’inek, I have personally seen Pluto from low orbit now. It ought to be kept as a preserve, I’d say, likely the only former planet ever. But I’ve seen its siblings, out there in the Underworld of Sol, with cubic miles of nitrogen ice just ready to be mined.
“‘How you gonna keep us down on the farm, now we’ve seen gay Paree?'” The smile in the President’s soft Southern voice was… cozy-warm as a winter’s-eve fire.
“Mister President, you cannot, you ought not, you must not… dare!”
David Caldwell looked at Elissa Fletcher. And suddenly, she began to sing.
“Though you try…”
And he smiled too, quite slowly, and… “And you try…”
She ‘caught’ it back. “And you try…” only a bit higher yet.
And they both looked at the huge spider in the room, who couldn’t hardly help but see everyone and everything in it, all the time.
“You can’t get no,” he sang, in a surprisingly deep and resonant voice.
“Satisfaction,” they sang all together, their arpeggio now a true chord.